I had five unicorn horns in my dimensional storage as I approached the door, flanked by most of the main cast from My Little Pony. I couldn’t recall exactly how many Immortality potions each horn would enable Cyrus to produce… but I was pleased.

  Well, pleased about that at least. And my general level of awesomeness, now that my system and evolutions were all back in effect. I hadn’t liked being weak, being vulnerable. I cautiously released Wrath from the deathgrip the hand of my willpower was maintaining on it, and smoke started to fill my menagerie's little world. Welp, eh?

  I was no one's welp, and whoever had said it was going to get an ass-whooping.

  I paused, my hand an inch from the door and turned to Cornie. “Any idea who that is and why your lot and the elves haven’t splatted them?”

  “Whoever it is must have claimed guest rights. We won’t intercede,” Cornie replied.

  “But if I die, you guys won’t get to hear my story. Might be worth thinking about,” I offered. Always a good idea to hedge your bets and remind people how valuable you are.

  I shoved at the door, stopped, and then pulled it open. From high above them on the rickety-looking platform outside it, the clearing looked remarkably empty. The Pockwols had fled, long streams of white mess marking their path to the north. Jace would be delighted with all the extra material he could gather.

  The gambolling fuzzies, arrogant, alliterative elves and frolicking pony-monsters had all vanished, no doubt following the paths laid down from above by the startled birds. It was eerie and quiet. In the centre of the clearing, a human body designed by an insecure child, and a little grey dude were laid out on the ground, eyes closed, and lifeless limbs flopped out like discarded dolls.

  Shit. Dagrun would be pissed if I’d gotten a couple of her TOTS killed. I strained my eyes and thought I saw faint movement in Jace’s chest. They were breathing, thank god. No pissed off mega dragon was going to eat me.

  Looking around, I couldn’t find the challenger. The place was dead.

  “Where is he?”

  Cornie raised her head and pointed upwards with her horn. Far above, a cloud moved against the wind. “That’s weird,” I muttered.

  “He has guest rights, so all the best, Bob. Good luck and have fun!” The three ponies backed up quickly, and the door slammed closed behind me. I resisted the urge to batter my fists on the door, resolving to intersperse my story, when I got round to telling it to them, with as much bullshit as I could get away with.

  I walked down the stairs slowly, keeping one eye on the weird cloud and one on my hopefully unconscious proteges. After hurrying across the ground, I confirmed they were still alive. Some kind of sleep spell? I thought dragons were pretty resistant to that kind of magic, but I was basing that on a wild ass guess, so it might be bollocks.

  I nudged Bargleblaster with a foot. He rolled over and started sucking his thumb.

  “Get up,” I hissed at the pair, giving Jace a toe poke to try and wake him up as well. No joy. The pair were out of it. I grabbed them by the collar and dragged them to the bottom of the stairs, tucking them underneath and hoping the unusually sturdy staircase would offer them some protection if things went sideways.

  The cloud had begun to drop lower as I shoved the useless dragons out of the way. I walked casually into the centre of the soon-to-be arena and held out my arms at my sides, face tilted up at whatever it was.

  “Ok then, shitbird. Here I am. I am Bob.”

  In my head, it sounded amazing. A defiant challenge to the heavens. A dragon throwing himself open to the challenge, embracing the consequences come what may, rising up to my idols. When there was no response, I felt a little bit silly. I started humming Eye of the Tiger to myself, which probably didn’t help with the surreality of the situation.

  The grey cloud descended, blotting out the sky above me. When it was hovering just above the trees, pulses of wind battered at me and sent my hair flying behind me, my tunic flapping in the gusts, the voice spoke.

  “You have wronged us, Champion of Light.” Booming, basso and bombastic. Goddamnit, the alchemists were starting to get in my head.

  “And you’re some minion of Umbrati? Come on then, let’s get this over with.”

  “Hardly a minion…”

  The cloud vanished, and the biggest damn dragon I had ever seen dropped to the ground, tucking his wings along his back before his clawed feet threw up clouds of dirt on impact.

  His neck was nearly as long as my own draconic body. Bright blue eyes surrounded by grey scales peered down at me, dirty-looking sparks drifting away from where a mammal would keep their tear ducts. His back was ridged, spines protruding irregularly. Some of them were nearly six feet long. His armoured limbs ended in pairs of claws, more like a crab’s than the kind I was used to seeing in my species.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  They were opposite each other and held closed as his weight settled onto them properly, each in its own little crater that they had made when they hit the dirt. He raised his left foreleg and stroked the long, dextrous moustache that sprouted from his long snout, and smiled at me.

  It was an impressive smile. As an aficionado of the menacing grin myself, I had to give him full marks. Standing there in my human form… his teeth were half the length of my body. Three tails flicked back and forth behind him.

  He was bigger than Dagrun had been. Bigger than I could ever hope to be. I was utterly outclassed and had only one fallback: my wits. Deep down, I knew I was in trouble.

  “So what’s the beef?” I asked, proud that my voice didn’t waver.

  “You are. Although I imagine a cow would taste better. Have you ever had aurox? Wonderful creatures, so docile, so stupid and unaware of the fate I intend for them.”

  “I tend to stick in people's throats.” Banter level zero achieved. “Do you like them because they’re too stupid to run away and you need the advantage?” Slightly better, Bob, but still kind of shit.

  “Nothing can run fast or far enough to escape Umbraxis the Destroyer! The dragon mage of old, who still haunts the mortal realm after three millennia! Your puny TOTS were nothing, not even worth killing. You would be the same, but my patron is annoyed with you, and she has asked me to scratch her itch.” His jaws snapped at me at the end, the moustaches flicking forward like whips to punctuate the gesture.

  “If everything is always running away from you, maybe it’s you? I mean, if everyone thought I was a giant grey prick, it might be me, you know? One or two thinking that? Sure, that’s just personality clashes or whatever, but everyone? Maybe you should take a look at yourself.”

  “You are brave, but foolish. Time to die, welp.”

  The neck curled upwards, and I noticed the muscles across his shoulders contract, thick scales rising as he prepared a breath attack. Time to see how good my stolen spells were.

  “Conjurare Barnaculum! Scutum Iris!”

  Barnacles appeared in the tiny gaps that had opened between his scales across his back, just as a rainbow shield powered by friendship appeared in front of me. He bucked in annoyance as his scales didn’t settle properly, but the shield still caught the blast of his breath attack. I hunkered down behind it, hoping it was also protecting the TOTS behind me.

  The torrent of purple fire sucked at the air, like it had a vacuum effect of some sort, and I struggled to stay in place. The grass around me burned in an instant, then the dirt began to glow and liquify. It was becoming uncomfortably warm.

  The attack shifted and flailed upward, pointing at the sky. With a bellow, he stopped and turned his jaws and claws to scrabbling at the tiny crustacea I had summoned between his scales.

  “Bastard!” he roared. “Manducare Barnacle!” He repeated the phrase over and over again. I knew getting stuff caught between your scales was uncomfortable, but I hadn’t expected this level of reaction.

  New Syntheticus unlocked!

  Manducare Barnacle

  I now knew how to magically teleport barnacles into my mouth. Magic was really weird.

  “Bastard,” he repeated, spraying shells and tiny crustacea in my direction. He swallowed a couple of times and shot me another savage grin. “That won’t help y–”

  “Scutum Iaculis!” I sent the shield up to wrap around his snout and hopefully prevent him from using any more spells, then I attacked.

  “Columna Fumi! Mortem Fucem!”

  I made sure the column of smoke came from my hand so as not to obscure my vision, and the mini-nuke turret sprang up to one side and began blasting away at the dragon. Do-A-Flip-Kick brought my right foot crashing up into the bottom of his jaw as he pawed at his eyes, trying to force away the fog from my spell.

  I dodged to the side, a claw came down, then I tried to use Crocs-Love-Hugs to spin it into the ground with my body weight, but he was too strong. I was tossed away and went tumbling through the grass. A tail swatted out nearby. The smoke was still clouding his vision. Another tail thudded down, closer this time, so I sprang back to my feet and charged at the point where his tails met his spine.

  Tails were powerful weapons, but they were also sensitive, and dragons seemed to be prickly about them. I arrived at his ass and leapt up onto his back. I used Control-Shai-Hulud to lever up a scale just above the base of his tail and lock myself in place. Orange-green fire poured from my mouth into the squishy flesh I’d exposed. Smoke that smelled both putrid and deliciously close to roast pork spewed out as the acid ate deeper into Umbraxis’ flesh.

  A tail slammed into my back, the metallic-grey pointy bit first, and knocked me loose. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t enough to damage me. For the first time ever, I was briefly, and reluctantly, grateful for the agony I’d endured at the hands of the god of smiths.

  I stumbled along the dragon's back a few steps, then leapt to where smoke still billowed from the base of the tails. They were all thrashing wildly, and in my excitement, I’d dropped my smoke spell. People say they can sometimes feel when someone looks at them. Some spiritual connection as their soul locks onto yours.

  I felt it now and knew that the serpentine neck had cranked round, that a blast of purple fire would soon be coming my way. I grabbed the edge of the scale I’d brutalised out of position earlier and levered it up again to send the breath attack to either side of me, then I shaped my fingers into claws that could dig through granite and started swiping.

  Clumps of gore flew away from me as I tore them out of his back until I hit bone. The tails and the snapping jaws couldn’t quite reach me, most of the time. I took a few hits, nasty bruises and minor cuts. After my talons had reached the bone, I dug out an area to the side and finally started slicing at the bone itself.

  “Come here, little nerves. Where are you hiding?” I was punch drunk at this point, but I still had my plan. Needed to really piss him off, and the best way to piss off a dragon is to mess with his tails. I finally felt something soft inside the hardened bone, sliced at it with my index finger, and the tails went dead, flopping to the ground behind me.

  My mission achieved, I jumped away as he beat his wings furiously, desperately gaining altitude and trailing three limp tails behind him.

  “I hear it happens to all guys, sooner or later. You can get a pill for it!” I called up, brushing my tunic off unsteadily. Hateful eyes turned down to me, and those massive grey wings snapped shut. He plummeted straight at me, jaws open wide, and I stood there waiting.

  All according to the best plan ever. I held up a fist and raised a single middle digit; around my wrist, a silver bracelet glinted in the light.